OUYA Finds a Friend With Amazon

OUYA, an Android-powered videogame console funded on crowd-funding site Kickstarter, will begin selling through Amazon, Gamestop and several other retailers.

Preorders for both consoles and controllers will start being accepted on Tuesday, in advance of retail availability in June 2013. Additional retailers include Target and Best Buy, who will sell the console for about $100.

OUYA will also sell its controllers – which include a pad that has touch input similar to the iPhone, but without a screen — for about $50. The console plugs into televisions and runs a number of games based on Google’s mobile operating system, Android. It’s open to any developer, and they are able to build games and also modify the hardware with new accessories or gadgets.

OUYA raised more than $8.5 million from a Kickstarter campaign and has been taking preorders for the consoles on its website. In all, there are more than 68,000 consoles on order, CEO Julie Uhrman said in an interview.

Uhrman said she would try to get placement that would make the console more accessible for demos and get greater visibility in retail outlets.

We caught up with Uhrman, who told us a little bit more about the announcement:

WSJ: Can you give us a quick breakdown of the deal?

JULIE UHRMAN: The presale is going to be on dot com and we plan on rolling out in physical locations. March is the unveiling, when Kickstarter backers get their units and OUYA will be live for all our supporters. In April we will be delivering units from people purchasing, and June will be the official launch.

The pricing is the same across the board: The console is $99.99, the standalone controller is $49.99. It’s a premium price for a controller, but with the inclusion of the touchpad really makes it a premium in the marketplace.

WSJ: Are you shipping more controllers than consoles?

UHRMAN: Those are ongoing conversations, part of that is going to be demand-driven. They saw gamer and developer excitement around OUYA. They saw excitement and felt partnering with us would be great for their customers. We haven’t signed off yet.

WSJ: How will placement work in retail?

UHRMAN: We want to support OUYA as best we can, both online and in physical retail, making sure there’s visibility for the product, to see content and demo the box. Those are all conversations we’re having with retailers. Retail partners of this size don’t just jump into business with every company that has something to sell. We’re providing something that has responded so well to gamers and developers.

WSJ: How many developers are on OUYA?

UHRMAN: We haven’t made any significant announcements for our line-up for our launch in June or our unveiling. We have about half a dozen to a dozen community sites with lists of as long as 200 titles coming to OUYA. We feel we’ll have a large suite of titles and titles from developers that are exclusive to OUYA.

You can expect games from every genre, from publishers you know, triple-A publishers. We already announced that Final Fantasy 3 is coming to OUYA from Square Enix. We are definitely working on exclusive content, Final Fantasy 3 has a lot of exclusive features — it’s the only version that’s made it to the TV. It’s a unique version that will be available only on OUYA.

WSJ: Are you personally backing any developers?

UHRMAN: Part of the money we raised on Kickstarter was to fund game development, and there are a lot of projects that we’re super excited about. There are games that we are supporting today.

WSJ: Does the presence of new console launches this year change your outlook at all?

JU: We don’t need to beat Xbox or Sony or any console that enters the marketplace, we need to carve out our own niche. OUYA offers a very different value proposition to the gaming you can currently experience. It’s a box designed specifically for the television that leverages the screen, we support 3D gaming, HD, we support the controller, we added a touchpad to the controller. The kind of content you’ll see on OUYA, it’ll be inventive and creative and has never been on the television.

WSJ: What do you think about the negative outlook for consoles?

UHRMAN: For the last year or two years all we’ve been hearing is that the consoles are dead. The reason is there isn’t new, innovative intellectual property. It’s expensive to develop on it. You’re seeing a major shift of games being developed on the television. Our viewpoint has always been that console gaming isn’t dead, the way we think about it hasn’t changed.

We’re bringing the best screen and the best device to interact with that by creating a platform that is open. This announcement Tuesday is that we now have more than just dreamers behind us, we have established companies that do their due diligence that believe there’s an opportunity for bringing great content back to the television. I’m not overly concerned or even some of the other people that have entered the space. If anything we think it underscores the perception that there’s fatigue by gamers.

WSJ: What’s to stop other developers for using the controllers for other devices, like Apple TV?

UHRMAN: We are okay with that. One of the promises of being open is you can use what we build for other things. But you can create accessories and peripherals for our device as well. At the end of the day, it makes our ecosystem richer.

WSJ: How much money are you spending on marketing?

UHRMAN: We wanted OUYA to be in every gamers hands, we wanted to be as big, if not bigger than any other device. We have plans in place to do that and we feel confident that if you’re a gamer you’re gonna know about that. We have done things different every step of the way, we basically said hey we have this great idea, you guys believe in us, help us make it come true. We’ve gotten feedback from what we put on the buttons to our d-pads to our touchpads. You’d be amazed with what you could accomplish.

WSJ: Any plans for additional funding?

UHRMAN: We’re focused entirely on building the product, all we’re working on is making sure we deliver units to our Kickstarter backers in March. The entire attention of the company is building the product right now.

WSJ: How many devices are spoken for?

UHRMAN: We have more than 63,000 backers, and we’ve been selling units every day. The number of orders have grown each month. We haven’t disclosed any numbers. I think it’s fair to say to get established players in the retail space excited about pre-selling OUYA speaks to the excitement in the marketplace. We’ve had more than 63,000 backers, and more than 68,000 consoles on order today.

Update: Uhrman meant to say the console had more than 63,000 Kickstarter backers, and more than 68,000 consoles on order including backers, a company spokesperson said. Uhrman said in the original interview that there were 68,000 Kickstarter backers.